The University of Kansas Student Senate failed to pass the Required Student Fee package in Finance Council on Wednesday, with a vote of 4-15.
The Fiscal Year 2027 Required Student Fee adds up to over $24 million, and funds many entities like transportation, Watkins and the Recreation Center.
This year, SafeRide, Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center and parts of the Student Health Fees had an increase in funding. The Student Unions and Student Senate had decreases.
The University Daily Kansan, Hilltop Child Development Center, recycling and Student Support and Case Management were cut from the fee.
During the Finance Council meeting, Nathan Binshtok, chair of the Required Student Fee Review Committee, presented the RSF survey and fee package in its entirety. Binshtok explained each fee entity’s ask, allocation, reasoning and resolutions, if applicable.
There were five speeches to reconsider the fee package and four speeches to pass it onto the Students’ Assembly.
Amara Ndubuisi, fee committee voting member, gave a speech in negation on the package.
“With the entities that were zeroed, they were done with the reason of sending them to Block,” Ndubuisi said. “I don’t agree with that reasoning, just because we’re running based on the assumption that they will get Block funding. Without this money they won’t be able to sustain their organizations.”
Ndubuisi also didn’t agree with the committee’s decision to decrease the Union’s fee because the Student Senate has had trouble booking their desired rooms this year.
“I don’t agree with playing judge, jury and executioner when it comes to taking money from organizations based off of not agreeing with their ideals or their practices,” Ndubuisi said.
While Ndubsuisi doesn’t agree with Hilltop’s allegations, she also doesn’t believe that pulling funding from them should be used as punishment.
Angel Rivera, fee committee voting member, spoke in affirmation of the package and addressed the UDK’s cut from RSF. Rivera was on the committee last year when the student body president claimed abuses by the UDK. He was sick and tired of those arguments, he said.
“My whole onset since that was to defend the UDK,” Rivera said. “The main purpose of zeroing them out with the resolutions that I accompanied with it was to specifically address the Union absorbing the UDK with the specificity to defend it from political rhetoric that we’ve seen for numbers of years.”
Mia Keene, Community Affairs vice chair and fee committee voting member, gave a speech in negation because of the alleged collusion in the fee committee. Keene was sent screenshots of a group chat called “required student fee coalition” made up of some members on the committee, she said.
“I believe that organizing votes in this manner online, outside of the broadcasted deliberations, which are intended to create transparency for student senate, is antithetical to the deliberative process that we participate in, and that we put our trust in when nominating these members,” Keene said.
Keene mentioned that she knows there was a spreadsheet in this group chat that depicted how the group wanted funding decisions to fall.
Keene wanted the finance council to vote no on the package to show the members of the alleged coalition that it’s unacceptable for “five or six members just fighting pointlessly for their voices to be heard when decisions have already been made outside of the room.”
Jack Kredo, Memorial Union executive director, said the Unions had no say in where certain programs are housed. He mentioned how if the Union was told about the complications with the Senate, they could’ve worked to fix it.
Committee members cited excess funding as reason to decrease Union funding. Kredo said the funding is being used for student-facing improvements. The funds that were proposed for the Union in the package wouldn’t be enough to keep everything, including KJHK and the SUA, funded.
The finance council recommended the committee decrease the Union by $5 instead of $8.50. The committee also didn’t use $2.20 of student fees which the council would like to see used on cut entities.
They also recommended a slight reduction in the SafeRide and CAPS proposals to then fund the Student Support and Case Management $1. Finally, the committee should ensure all groups are seen equally and in open space, not online or outside the deliberation chambers.
The proposed RSF package will be presented again at the Finance Council on March 4. Block applications will also be reopened, and the new deadline will be March 1, with deliberations being March 13.
This article was edited by Associate News Editor Julia Hanson. If the information in this article needs to be corrected, please contact juliahanson@ku.edu.